or, the Seldom Collection. The online version of me.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Do Students Learn Differently?
I decided to write this post on Storify, as I wanted to include the original tweets that inspired my thoughts. Due to the large font, though, this is a scroller...sorry about that.
Here is the link to the Storify post in case the embed code doesn't work.
I wondering if engaging IS fun. There's different kinds of fun. One type of fun is when my kids and I re laughing our heads off on a road trip, but there's another kind of fun that I only encounter when I'm plugging away at a problem that's both challenging and achievable. This second kind of fun is related to "flow". I agree that we needn't be entertainers at the front of the class, but maybe we can become facilitators of flow.
I also hated school but loved to learn. This probably isn't unfamiliar to many of our students. The best thing we can do is to set up situations by which our students can escape from "schooling" and get to the engaging work of learning towards some productive and stainable end. You know this, of course, because so much of this blog is filled with reflections on impact, rather than the concerns a performer would have, which would probably be more focused on delivery.
Your phrase "facilitators of flow" is too cool on too may levels (I hear a jazz sax wailing as I type that). It also reminds me of a man who I haven't studied yet constantly stumble across in my reading: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. From the little I know, he discusses the optimal state of "flow" - it would be interesting to see how that would manifest in a classroom, and what "impact" it would have.
FWIW - here's a MC discussing flow from a 2004 TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html). I haven't watched the whole thing yet (my son is tearing up the room, of course), but will tonight.
I wondering if engaging IS fun. There's different kinds of fun. One type of fun is when my kids and I re laughing our heads off on a road trip, but there's another kind of fun that I only encounter when I'm plugging away at a problem that's both challenging and achievable. This second kind of fun is related to "flow". I agree that we needn't be entertainers at the front of the class, but maybe we can become facilitators of flow.
ReplyDeleteI also hated school but loved to learn. This probably isn't unfamiliar to many of our students. The best thing we can do is to set up situations by which our students can escape from "schooling" and get to the engaging work of learning towards some productive and stainable end. You know this, of course, because so much of this blog is filled with reflections on impact, rather than the concerns a performer would have, which would probably be more focused on delivery.
Your phrase "facilitators of flow" is too cool on too may levels (I hear a jazz sax wailing as I type that). It also reminds me of a man who I haven't studied yet constantly stumble across in my reading: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. From the little I know, he discusses the optimal state of "flow" - it would be interesting to see how that would manifest in a classroom, and what "impact" it would have.
DeleteFWIW - here's a MC discussing flow from a 2004 TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html). I haven't watched the whole thing yet (my son is tearing up the room, of course), but will tonight.